The Paleo Thyroid Solution with Elle Russ

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Stash A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more. Pick a bundle with your go tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See Terms at Venmo Me Stash Terms. Welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show with celebrity nutrition expert, Fitness hall of Famer and four time New York Times best selling author JJ Virgin. JJ is a warrior mom whose knowledge and expertise have helped change hundreds of thousands of with over 3.5 million podcast downloads and appearances on Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, the Today Show, Rachael Ray, Larry.

King Love Whoa, whoa, whoa. This show is about you, not about me. I want to help you find practical, real world ways to dial in your health and mindset so you can finally lose that weight and feel strong and energized. Stop settling for less than your personal best. It's time to find out how to look and feel better than ever. And I'll be right here with you the whole way. Alrighty. I know we get we talk a lot about thyroid on this show and we're going to talk about it today from a different perspective. I'm really excited about this. I have an amazing guest. Her name is Elle Russ. She's a writer and a life coach and host of the popular Primal Blueprint podcast. That's how I got to know about her. We share a buddy in common, Mark Sisson, who really was kind of one of the top people in the whole Paleo primal health movement and has been a friend for years and years and years. She's going to share her story about what happened with her when she as a writer her thyroid went down and she was thrust in her to her own health journey. Kind of like kicking and screaming. This is nothing she ever wanted to do. And now she is a writer and life coach again and really focusing on hypothyroidism. And we're going to talk about reverse T3 which we've really not talked much about on this show and then whether you should or shouldn't go low carb or keto, which I get asked all the time. So I'm really excited to share Elle with you. Now we've got some super cool shownotes she has put together an amazing thyroid resource. I'm trying to think of what I call it. It's like a whole guide of all of her resources from her $15,000 of exploration into this topic when she was going through it herself. She has loads and loads of research and she has put this all together so that you can get it. And all you need to do is go to JJ virgin.com and grab Paleo. Go to JJ virgin.com Paleothyroid that is after her book, the Paleo Thyroid Solution, which came from her own journey. Again, consulting over two dozen endocrinologists, internal med specialists, general practice MDs, all the while, like, just getting worse and worse and worse, gaining more weight, hair falling out, tired, cranky, etc. Crazy. But luckily she was able to turn this all around and her journey has become, again, this book, the Paleo Thyroid Solution. So I'm excited to share this information with you today. All right, L. Russ, welcome to to the show. I'm so glad to have you here with me today.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to share information about the.

Thyroid with everyone I know. Well, it's a huge topic, one that we've talked a lot about on the show. And I'm excited because you have a great health journey. And coming from this as a writer, a researcher, an investigator, and then someone personally going through this, you've got a great story to share. So let's talk first about your journey. What happened and, you know, what led you to become a thyroid expert?

You know, it was totally an accident. And what happened was I was in LA pursuing my career as a sketch comedy writer and actor, and I just kept getting my period every couple weeks suddenly, at the age of 30 and then started to get really fat and my hair would fall out. And I kept going to doctors and people were sort of just taking the wrong tests and, you know, taking the tests that are a little bit outdated and have been steeped in maybe 30 years versus some of the, you know, newer tests that these doctors are becoming aware of. So I was undiagnosed and misdiagnosed for several years and suffered greatly. And, you know, unfortunately, I had to kind of take my health into my own hands, which I don't suggest I want people to work with a doctor, but I kind of was left in the dust and had to just, you know, in order to survive, do it myself. So I did. So I accidentally became an expert because I dosed myself back to health using thyroid hormones twice in 10 years, the second time being a very acute reverse T3 situation, which in unfortunately more and more functional MDs and doctors were getting on the program with that. But at the time no one really knew what it was, how to fix it. And so I was sort of left to my own devices. And when you've overcome something like that, as you're well aware, you feel compelled to share it. So it was really a matter of being compelled to write the book. And then of course I met Mark Sisson, your friend of 30 plus years, who is a best selling author of the Primal Blueprint and Keto Reset. And when I started working for him and adopted the Paleo Primal paradigm, I discovered connections that no one had made and the light bulbs went off and you know, it just, it just really hit. And Mark had really wanted to write a thyroid book because it is so prevalent and it's such an epidemic. So that really, that started the journey there and you know, it's been great ever since. Helping others.

Yay. So crazy. Years of hair falling out, being overweight and this being missed when these are like classic signs, it just drives me nuts to hear. And that is why we do. You know, it's like you want to find great functional docs to work with, but we all need to take personal risk, responsibility for our health and your perfect case of doing that and being able to turn things around and now sharing that which I love. Let's talk because you mentioned reverse T3 and you know, I don't know if it's just because we're finally testing for it that we're starting to talk about it or what's going on. You always go, is it just because for years I would have to write it down, explain why we needed it. It just wasn't getting tested when I would send clients over to their docs to get tested for. So I'm glad it's becoming more out there, but I'd love to hear you know, your story. Like a. First of all, let's explain to Everybody what reverse T3 is and what happened with you.

Sure. Well, for starters, reverse T3 should be tested by every doctor, with everyone, just because it is a general marker of wellness and unwellness in the body. And I'll explain that in a minute whether you have a thyroid problem or not. So I think it might behoove the audience and you know, this might be a quick discussion of the feedback loop in order to explain reverse T3, but they can always maybe go back and re listen to it. So, so here's how it works at the base of our brain, we have a pituitary gland, and we can kind of consider it a little signaling system. And when it senses that your blood is low in thyroid hormones, it will send out a signal and say, hey, wake up, thyroid. Then the thyroid, if it's working properly, will wake up and it will dispense two hormones, T4 and T3. It'll dispense more T4 than T3. And the reason is T3 is the active, biologically active hormone. It's the only one that truly, truly matters. And the thing is that T4 is there because T3 is so powerful. It acts as a prohormone, sort of like you can imagine it as a slow release system. So that at any given time when your body needs T3, the T4 that's steady and sort of in your body will then convert as you need it. Now, in the case of reverse T3 though, here's what happens. Sometimes that T4 does not get converted into the biologically active hormone T3. It gets converted into an inactive form called reverse T3. Why does it do that? Here's why T3 is so powerful. It is the most powerful fat burner in our body, and it is like putting gasoline on a fire. So in the event that. Let me give you a few scenarios where reverse T3 comes in. Let's say you just got into a horrible accident. Oh my gosh. And your leg's inflamed or broken. At that moment, your body's gonna sort of downregulate and it's not gonna throw any more of this metabolic fuel onto an inflammation fire that's happening. Same with, like, the flu. Same with an infection, Lyme disease, etc. It won't convert into what matters because it's trying to protect you. And I think that's really the important thing that I try to impress upon everybody is that our bodies are trying to protect us at any given moment. You know, type 2 diabetes, that's your body trying to help you. If you get fat. And with diabetes, that's a plus. You don't want to be skinny fat. It's trying to save your life. Same here with reverse T3. So let's say you're a marathon runner and maybe you're eating a low fat paradigm and you are maybe not getting enough calories in that scenario. You'll also maybe produce too much reverse T3 because the primal perspective is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, she's not getting enough food. She's starving. We're going to downregulate this and by the way, if she gets pregnant, might have a miscarriage because she's in no position to have a child. Furthermore, oh, she's running from danger. The stress of the running or the stress of the overworking out, or just the stress of you're not getting enough sleep and you're arguing with your lawyers during a divorce. Any stressful situation or what messages are we sending to the system? So the thyroid will respond to that. Those messages come in the form of lifestyle sleep, but also food. So Paleo Primal, a high fat, moderate protein, low carb paradigm is the ultimate in adrenal management and blood glucose management. And those two things go together hand in hand with our, with our hormones and thyroid. So we want to always be sending it the right messages. So reverse T3 issues on the rise because of a few things. Toxic environment, so low selenium levels can cause it, but also just high mercury. Other situations happening that are, you know, sibo. Other issues in the body that are going on can affect the conversion of the T4 to the T3. Another thing that affects it is high mercury. Having silver fillings in the mouth that can, aside from affecting mitochondria and weight loss efforts, it can affect that conversion. So we want to make sure that this feedback loop is working properly and in sync. So the, the increase of high reverse T3 right now could be due to a variety of factors. It could just be poor diet and lifestyle and lack of sleep and things like that. It could be nutrient deficiencies. It also could just be like over training. So there's, there's a lot of ways you can, you know, mess with this system. Of course there's a, there's a million factors here, but I think that that's why it's on the rise. I think we're having issues adapting to a modern lifestyle and not finding that balance and all of the things that you push and impress upon your listeners and your readers. You know, this, this finding the balance, finding the time for sleep, making these things a priority also too, you know, I'm a type A personality in a lot of ways in terms of efficiency, multitasking. Sometimes when we go too fast in life, though, you know, you're working at the desk and you got like a million things going on that can be affecting the adrenals in a negative way. As you know, you can get pumped up and you're sort of in a fight or flight state even though you don't feel negatively stressed. So I also too say, you gotta slow down. And I'm someone who talks fast and can move fast, but I'm also aware of what that does to my body. So when I'm going, going, going, I will sometimes stop and go, all right, you know what, what kind of messages am I sending right now? Do I need to work 100 miles an hour right this moment, or am I just kind of wrapped up in it? Do you know what I'm saying? So hopefully that's a good starter for reverse T3, and then I'm happy to answer anything about it.

Well, I'm going to step right into it because I will share with you that I think, you know, there's a lot of research out there, as well as some of the docs talking about what low carb diets can do for can do to impact adrenal and thyroid. And it also comes to where on the spectrum do we need to go? Where I go with all of this is I think that we've got to consider genetics, lifestyle, health problems to really figure out where someone should be in terms of how many carbs, how much fat, how much protein. But I'd love for you to explain understanding that we've had differing opinions on this show, right, as to what you feel happens, because there's definitely research out there showing that if you eat a low carb or keto diet, it can impact poorly on your adrenals and thyroid. So I'd like to hear your side of that. And when I say it, I don't mean your side, just what you've seen in your research and with your own personal health so that people can, I like to present all of it, you know, and see what works best. Because I think we all have have our individual bio biochemistry here and bio individuality, which is why what you're doing is so important. It's so important for us to take personal responsibility for our health and to understand that that lab test is a moment in time and how you feel every day is, is what's key. And you've got to put it all together to be able to figure out the best program for yourself, which is what I think this whole what you've really shown so well to be able to do. So what's your take on that? Right.

Well, let's look at it from a couple of angles. So any of the studies that have been done that show that maybe low carb or keto affects thyroid negatively, let's look at what negatively means. So sometimes they might say, oh, the TSH, the signal gets a little suppressed, or the T4 to T3 conversion. But here's what you have to ask. Is that a problem? Because if you are hypo and went. A lot of people go to low carb diets because they're already hypothyroid and getting fat and suffering and there's nothing more frustrating when your body doesn't work the way you want it. You know, you're working out and you're not losing weight. So. So let's look at those studies. Like, I'd love to see, is there a sampling of the people who were totally not hypothyroid, doing great, metabolically efficient, then went low card and low carb and it screwed up their thyroid? That would be interesting. We'd also have to see, though, there's lots of factors. What was their selenium, you know, intake? Were they doing low carb?

Right.

You know, a lot of people, when they go low carb and keto, it's such a great appetite suppressant as you know. But then oftentimes those people don't eat enough calories, enough nutrition, and so therefore that could send the signal she's starving, start to create more reverse T3. So I would always ask the question, where is the sampling of the person in the study coming from before the blood was tested? Now, we have seen examples of this. When you go down the road of Paleo primal or just, you know, cleaning out your life, detoxing and going down this journey, you often become more T3 efficient, just like calorically efficient, meaning you need less T3 to function on that one might otherwise need. And that I've seen in myself and other people. There's example of someone in our space, Tony Federico, who's missing a thyroid gland, but his. And he's on replacement, of course, his free T3 is a little bit below the mid range, which usually for someone on thyroid replacement would be sort of mid range or above. And he feels great. Why is that? Well, he's really dialed in, he's really efficient, he's really healthy with the adrenals and blood glucose management. So it's not so. So is that bad? Is it bad that Tony has a 2.9 free T3? No, not for him. Right. So when we talk about these studies, low carb causing adrenal fatigue or issues or thyroid, I would just ask the question, where were the people nutritionally in every way before they even ventured down that road? Because often it is a person who's already suffering from something, if that makes sense. Now, the other catch here as well is if you already have Adrenal issues with most people who have hypothyroidism, that is not the time to go keto. I never suggest anybody do that now. The only time it's applicable and really positive. Let's say someone's very obese and overweight and heading down that type 2 pre diabetic road. In that case, yes, you want to become more insulin sensitive, because that does help the thyroid. So in that kind of situation, yes, maybe taking them a little, little lower carb and getting them on that train is gonna then improve the thyroid status. If you have adrenal issues already and you're suffering, then it might not be a good idea to do intermittent fasting or try to go down the road. And here's the main reason why, jj, because you can't get there anyway if you're already hypothyroid. And it's just gonna make it worse. It's like trying to wet light a wet log. So. So people, you know, they'll contact me and be like, I'm trying keto. But, you know, things are getting worse and I'm like, like, well, wait a minute. You know, you should only be attempting keto from a position of proper metabolism. And if you're hypothyroid, then that fat and high fat paradigm is not going to be processed correctly. So I know it's hard because, you know, you really want to try to get ahead of weight gain and ahead of these symptoms, and everyone's looking for the right diet. The best way that I say to go is just clean it out, look at all of these factors, try to get a little bit lower carb and head towards this paradigm. But don't expect that you will get truly fat adapted right away or that you will be in a position to go keto. You really need the proper primordial baseline in order to even have ketosis work. Because I'll tell you right now, from personal experience, when I was hypothyroid, no amount of keto works. You just get fatter because there's no fire. There's no. There's no furnace happening. Anyway, so. So there's a lot of nuances to. To claims that, you know, something causes something. But I would say, well, in that case, what was that person's profile?

Actually, actually, the people on the show have said the exact same thing as you, and it wasn't based on studies. It's based on biochemistry. So you just said the exact same thing, which is awesome. Which really what we need to look at is all of these it's funny, the other day, El, someone said someone wrote a blog post, the keto's a fad. I go, really? You know, keto, Keto and paleo were fads. I'm like, well, Julius Caesar used keto to help seizures. So the challenge is, I think with keto and with paleo and with vegan, with all of these diets, is there's always a way to turn them into a fad and turn them into a junk food situation. There always is. It drives me nuts. And there's times when things can work really well. And so you need to consider the mechanism of action for each diet, what it does and where it's most appropriate for you and what you're saying here. And it's funny, I just did a little Q A on one of my podcasts saying this exact same thing. Is that the first thing that you want to do when you've got either adrenal issues, thyroid issues, you're going into menopause. Any of these things is a start with what's at the end of your fork. Clean up your diet. Clean up your diet, right? And start to go. And no one, you can put a bunch of nutritionists in the room. I don't think anyone's going to argue with, eat closer to nature. Unprocess your diet right now. They'll fight after that. But that's the first part to start to do. And the thing you've said here that's really important is see how you feel. Like if you think you should be keto and you feel crappy on it.

Hello, Blood work done, right? Time to look at other mitochondrial ATP factors, like heavy metal. You know, I had high mercury as well. That is a thyroid screw upper in every way. So, you know, but again, like you said, you take the first step, mouth to anus, that's all on you, right? And then you can go to functional doctors, look at other factors and try to, you know, pan the camera out and then attack the problem and just keep going down and get smaller. And so there's so many factors to this. But unfortunately, again, you know, I was there too, when, listen, I'm five two, I'm a small person. I went from 115 pounds to 160, working out two hours a day, eating less than 1200 calories. It is against logic and our own, like, intuition to work out and then feel fatter later that day. How does that happen? That really messes with your mind.

And so it's like, it is why I got back when I was a trainer 30 plus years ago. When I first knew Mark, I was working out with clients. I was in doctoral school, and we were taught that in order for you to get someone to lose weight, you to create a 500 calorie deficit a day. This will make you bang your head against the wall. And that was it. It was eat less, exercise more. And I, by the way, heard Jillian Michael say this on the Biggest loser. It's just calories in carry thyroid hormone, by the way. I was like, how is this happening nowadays? How is this still out there hurting people? Like, the biggest loser to me is one of the worst, worst things for making people making America fatter. Because it's propelling that whole myth that it's, you know, you just need to eat less. I'm like, did anyone look at what happens? Because you did a beautiful explanation of what happens when you cut your calories too low. And we're not talking about if you did it for a day, if you intermittent and fast. We're talking about when you chronically do these things. There are some amazing, acute things that can happen when you do stuff, but chronically, you cut your calories down and over exercise, your body goes, hell with you, missy.

Well, they did it with me, because the reason I got it is I was on a low fat, low carb paradigm zone. South Beach. Eat every two, three hours, keep your insulin sensitive. And let's talk about the Biggest loser for a second. Anybody can take a box of. Because here's the thing. Anyone can take a box of laxatives and actually, like, really under eat for a while and then the number on the scale. But we don't care about the number on the scale. You want to care about percentage of body fat. That's the number. And they never judge those contests by the number enabled.

James. Fat. I brought it on.

Elle.

When I was on Dr. Phil for two years, I brought the body fat scale on. But here's what happened. Talk about pulling back the kimono. So I was in with a $5,000 to need a body fat scale. Because I go, guys, it's waist and hip measurements and body fat. That's what we've got to monitor. And I actually caught one guy who'd always kind of crashed midway through a diet and then gained weight back. And I watched him starting to hold on to fat, lose muscle, and his adrenal function went sideways. And I go, you got to eat more and stop exercising so much. And he was like, you must be crazy. We're in the middle of a contest. I go, no, trust me. And that's what we did. That's how he won. He won the whole contest because we cut his exercise down and, and upped his calories. But one of the things that they would do to before a weigh in, and I could see it on the body fat scale, is they would dehydrate themselves. And so that's the challenge. When you look at something like a Biggest Loser program, all you have to do if you're going into a weigh in is they would literally. We had a big contest going on and the team who won didn't drink anything for a whole day, got into their bathroom, shoved towels under the doors and created steam. Steam rooms. So they. Right. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that is. It's brilliant.

It's cheating. Horrible.

Horrible for your health. But we didn't put it in. We didn't tell them they couldn't. So, you know, I was like, we just won't talk about this.

Well, isn't that stressful?

But the problem is, we're seeing. The problem is America doesn't know this. So they watch a TV show, they see this happen and they don't know what really happened. And what really happened. You know what? I wanted to follow these people after the show. And I think I've heard from Biggest Loser about the weight regain. And it's like, well, yeah, because not only is it not sustainable, it's actually metabolically damaging. And that's the bigger part.

It is. Well, carbohydrate dependency is. And let's look at that for a second. So, you know, if you're hypoglycemic, sugar burner, where you're having the hangry meltdowns every 24 hours and need to eat and you're on that hamster wheel of carbohydrate dependency for the people listening. So when you have the drops and you have the highs, cortisol responds. It doesn't like that. It likes steadiness. When cortisol responds, what does that do? That's antagonistic to testosterone, to muscle building, to everything else. So, you know, if you are going to be on the bigger Biggest Loser hamster wheel, oh my gosh. It's going to be a very regimented form of eating and exercising and you ingest the carbs, you burn the carbs, you. But you're never fully satiated. And you know, the other thing that it breeds that I had that I don't have anymore now that I'm on this paradigm is I was a complete Food addict, jj, it was a disaster. I was a sugar addict and a food addict. Totally borderline eating disorder, driving around the grocery store making deals. If I find a parking spot, I can get the donuts. I've been there. And it doesn't matter if you're £500 as a sugar addict or you're somewhat fit. It's a horrible mental stress and it feels like a curse. And I remember being like, is it just me? You know, do I have an inherent problem? Because I can only remember always being like this. And then when you go over to this paradigm and it goes away completely, I cannot tell you. Sometimes I still shed tears of gratitude that I don't think about food the way I did. It is a blessing, aside from all the other benefits too. So, you know, it's just a much better, wonderful, easy life.

So this is a great place to jump in and share with everybody the resources you're going to give them. Because that one, I hope everyone listening now goes okay, there's hope you can shift this. Unfortunately, the paradigm out there in the world is, is still pushing us to damaging our metabolism and making things worse, not better. But I know you've got a bunch of resources you're going to be giving everyone. And I'm going to put that@jjvirgin.com Paleothyroid because that's easy to remember. Paleothyroid. In honor of your Paleothyroid Solution book, tell us a little bit about those resources. Alex.

Yeah, you know, one of the things that was a bummer for me going through this is I spent like $15,000 of my own money on top of having a PPO trying to, to go to all of these doctors and figure it out. And one would test me wrong and the other, you know, and it just was like, oh my gosh. And I felt so. Just exhausted financially and overwhelmed that I really wanted to create, you know, yes, you can go buy my book, but you also don't have to. What I give in this resources, not only just like some podcasts and articles on the topic, but what blood test to get, what time of day you should get it. How do you talk to a doctor to make sure they might be the right one? What questions do you ask? I have some warnings in there also about T3 only medication. I'm also T3 only. But a lot of people misunderstand that and they just want to go right to taking that thyroid hormone. And it's actually the last choice of thyroid hormone replacement. And I offer ways to find a Doctor in the US Outside of the US through forums online where other thyroid patients have gauged and made comments about these doctors like, this guy knows what they're doing, but they have a bad bedside manner. But, you know, whatever it is, there's, there's a little sort of like synopsis of each doctor and it's really helpful and people found great doctors that way and just really resources to get people on the right path. Because at the very least, people are just not getting tested comprehensively, as you know. And so that is the most important part is to get tested and assess it. I literally was told for two years, your thyroid is fine. You need to work out more and eat less. And I just told you how much I was working out. And, and my, and the doctor even hit my gym shoes and he goes, just use these more. I'm like, dude, I am working out like two and a half hours a day like this. And so, you know, because he just tested a 19.

Stop eating all those cookies, Elle. Right.

People get accused of having closet eating disorders all the time. So, you know, I heard it all the time.

Why I got fascinated with all this.

Yeah.

And it's super frustrating. So again, resources, you'll get them at jjvirgin.com forward/paleothyroid there. That's easy. And thank you for doing all of your homework so that everybody else doesn't have to. They can just ride on your 15 grand years you spent. I super appreciate that. I know it's been quite a journey, but boy, you sure turned it around or helping a ton of people with it.

I'd love to leave one last thought, which is, you know, a lot of people get told by doctors you're always going to suffer from X because you have hypothyroidism. This is a fixable situation. Don't let anybody tell you that. You know, there is absolute hope. It's totally solvable in most cases. It's just usually people are either undertreated, under diagnosed or, or just not doing the hormones in the right way. But it's all fixable. And I just want people out there who are suffering. Even if you've been to a ton of doctors and it's a. You'll get there. Perseverance. And like you said earlier, my other big tip is, you know, if you get diagnosed with something, learn about it. Don't just rely on a doctor to tell you something. Work with them, of course, but learn yourself. Because sometimes you're your best doctor. Sometimes you might know about something that your doctor doesn't you might even be able to teach them something which has happened too that they don't know or just easier to work with because you're more knowledgeable about what's happening to you. So you know it is important to take personal responsibility.

Thank you. That is, that is like one of our key through lines in our community is to do that. And I think you're just such a perfect representation of that. So I super appreciate it. I'm going to remind everybody again, grab the show notes. We have amazing show notes, especially today. Jjvirgin.com Paleothyroid and Elle, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Thank you.

Alrighty. Now after the break, I'll be answering a listener's questions, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question came from a recent Instagram Live. Hopefully I'm seeing you on my Instagram and Facebook lives. I do them every week, usually Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. But then I also like to pop on another couple times throughout the week. So this was a question we were talking about stress and adrenal health and I got asked a question from Linda about what the best way to test your adrenals is. Now I'm going to give you a couple different ways to look at this. And again, really the theme of the podcast this day and every day is taking personal responsibility for your health. And so the test I like to do is something called an adrenal salivary index. And I'm happy to say that my last one that I did a couple months ago with my buddy Dr. Alan Christensen was finally normal after years after my son got hit and nearly died from a hit and run driver while he was out walking crossing the street and was in the hospital for four and a half months. It's a story I talk about in Warrior mom and we have the movie about it too. We'll put both of those in the show notes as well. It took me about five years to get my adrenals totally back together again. It was like Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. And I used the adrenal test to do this. I did it every six months. And what this test does, it's a spit test. And it looks at your cortisol four times throughout the day, morning, midday, afternoon and evening. And then it looks at that rhythm. And that's super important because a once one time blood spot is just a moment in time and you really want to look at the rhythm that's going on with your cortisol. So that is what I've been doing. And we will have resources in the show notes for how you can get that test done. But here's the important thing that should really be combined with symptoms and lifestyle. And that's another thing. We'll put our adrenal quiz into the show notes as well because what you've also got to look at is all of the symptoms of adrenal issues from insomnia, mood, sugar and salt cravings. So we'll go through those as well because it's really important to connect the dots. I can actually tell when my adrenals are starting to go a little bit sideways or when my cortisol is coming up. Which, by the way, tapping is an amazing way to bring your cortisol down. Vitamin C and tapping, those are my two favorite things to do for your adrenal glands. That will make big impact quickly. And we'll put some resources in there for the tapping solution by my buddy Nick Ortner too. But bottom line is I like to make sure that not only are you testing, you're also putting that together with your own tracking of symptoms so you'll really get a feel for what's going on and where you should be so that you can start to make those changes. All right, now again, you can pick up all that in our show notes. Jjvirgin.com Paleothyroid and that's for my guest Paleo thyroid solution book L Russ and I just want to do a shout out to the Captain 5 from the USA for the five star review says awesome and encouraging and I super appreciate that and I appreciate all of you for the reviews you've been leaving. It helps a bunch. It helps people when they're trying to think about what they should listen to. Cut through the noise and come on over to our world. And you know, we're really devoted I'm really devoted, as is my whole team, in supporting the community with great cutting edge information that you can put into immediate use. So that's my other big thing today is you've heard some stuff today that can help. So it only helps. It only works if you work it. So put it into use and I will see you next week.

That's all for this episode of the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show, which marks another step towards a healthier body and mind. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the show and we'll talk to you next week.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading Next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.